


Jackass and Dumbass

by Phantasmal_Salp



Category: NieR: Automata (Video Game)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-20
Updated: 2019-08-20
Packaged: 2020-09-19 00:24:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,445
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20322010
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Phantasmal_Salp/pseuds/Phantasmal_Salp
Summary: After E-Day, Jackass still has a job to do, and things to blow up.  Even if there's no point to it anymore.





	Jackass and Dumbass

Damn, it was a hot day.  
God, what a stupid thing to think. Of course it was fucking hot out, she was in a desert, and the sun was out.  
Even with her sand-colored half-tent set up over her, it was hot. Glancing to her watch, she saw that the temp was over 150 out on the open sand. Enough to bake an android, if they were stupid enough to stand out in it.  
As it was, she would probably need to replace her coolant later.  
"You know . . . I really hate sand," she commented. "I should see if I can get myself assigned to a different place. What do you think, you think I should 'accidentally' blow up some more supplies? That might annoy Anemone enough to send me somewhere else."  
She glanced to her companion, who was as silent as usual.  
"Ah, good point," she admitted. "She could always send me someplace worse than this."  
There came no answer, which was fine. She'd have been more alarmed if she had gotten one.  
"You're a good listener. It's what I like about you."  
The robot said nothing, and continued to lay there, lifeless. Stupid thing was some kind of factory defect who had both a buzzsaw and a cannon built on him. When he fired the former, it hit the latter, and after enough abuse it had broken one of the arms holding the buzzsaw in place, sending the blade swinging around. Sawed through its own torso.  
When she'd picked this rock, the little bastard had just been laying here. Not a mark on him besides his own weapons.  
"You know what," she decided. "I'm going to call you Dumbass. Jackass and Dumbass! That's something I'd watch."  
Amused at the thought, Jackass peered over the rock, carefully shielding her binoculars so they didn't reflect the sun and give her away.  
Down in the valley, more machine lifeforms were amassing in a group. What kind of idiocy was this . . . ?  
For four days she'd been receiving reports and seeing groups of the machines gathering in this area. Always this same little dip, a well-secluded spot from casual observers.  
Suspicious as hell, to her. As stupid as most machines were, they could paradoxically be clever at times. Hell, she'd seen the ones in the forest who had recreated human feudalism, of all things. Smart enough to create a complex social system, dumb enough to think a 'baby' robot could grow up.  
Sighing deeply, she tried not to get distracted from the present. Putting the binoculars  
down, she took up her rifle, wrapped in tan rags. Her scope had a much better zoom than the binoculars.  
Looking down, she could see the robots milling around, separated into small groups. They all wore those stupid masks and cloaks, a weird thing about the desert bots. Different groups had variations in their design around some centralized theme, and sometimes she thought the designs must have some meaning specific to the robot, but . . . no, she wouldn't believe that.  
Imitating humans? Sure, they did weird stuff like that. But actually develop individuality, a culture, on their own?  
It irked her, though. She was a scientist. Sorta. At least she had an interest in learning through observation! Ignoring something in front of her, just because she hated the bastards, didn't sit right with her.  
Then she thought of White, and the fact that she was dead, and it became easy to dismiss it.  
She had sworn she'd kill every last one of the tin cans.  
Her jaw clenched, and she scanned them again. They were laying out bright squares of tattered cloth, and others were bringing objects out of bags to lay on the cloth.  
She saw scrap parts, weapons, crude brushes, even some kinds of paint. Machines from other groups would walk over to another's assortment, and sometimes they would give over some currency for something.  
The cloaks of some had gold discs sewn into them, and those seemed to have the best and most numerous 'goods'. Sand filters were particularly popular, and reminded her that she should have her own looked at.  
Crap, now that Pascal and his village were gone, how were the Resistance going to get new filters?  
She leaned back. Shit. Even beyond the supply problems it would create, she had gotten so used to the fact that Pascal and his village were different from the other machine lifeforms that it was easy to forget they were still machines.  
Hate battled with what she knew in her mind. Her desire to understand almost won, until she remembered the friends she'd never talk to again. The ones who had died in the camp recently, literally eaten by machines gone mad.  
She'd never had a problem with Pascal, but if the asshole was here now, she would have shot him. He was a machine, and they were all bastards.  
Holding onto that hate and pain made it easy. It was shitty, but it made things easier, at least right now.  
There was a new group of machines arriving, and the others were acting very excited. It was . . . pure in a way, and her hate shriveled as she watched them gather around the newcomers.  
One traded his mask, right off his face, to the newcomer, though she couldn't see what he got in return, the press of other machines hiding it.  
They were clustered around one particular spot. They had no idea, but it was perfect for her.  
After getting the reports, she had come out last evening, and waited overnight. No robots had shown up, so she had gone down, and did what she did best.  
Rig the whole area to blow.  
They were standing in the epicenter of her trap now, all hopping excitedly, their stupid masks bouncing.  
God, she hated them.  
She wanted their heads. All of them, to see their lights go off, to hear them make their tinny little cries of fear.  
Memories of everyone she'd known, people she had loved, seemed like they were begging her to kill them all.  
But these idiots weren't the ones who created YoRHa, were they? They weren't the architects of all this shit, the endless war. They were just stupid machines who maybe, just maybe, had thoughts of their own. Even if they were still stupid jerks.  
A part of her reveled in the idea of seeing their happiness turn to fear and pain. Some might keep sapience long enough after the explosions to realize what had happened.  
Long ago she'd become numb to a lot of things, even the robots occasional pleas for mercy. Her rage at discovering the truth had turned numbness to a deep hate, but just for a time. After that, came the hollowness. Like her soul was leaking away. If she'd ever had a soul.  
Her hand hovered over the button for the explosives. These ones were hostile. There was nothing wrong with blowing them up. No one she cared about would call her wrong. Hell, even hippie-dippie Pascal would have probably been accepting of it, not that she talked to that weirdo much.  
But she found her hand shaking.  
She put the detonator aside. It felt like . . . God, is this what it had felt like for White and all the other androids who had been taken over by the Logic Virus? This desire for violence and death, even when it didn't make any sense?  
Her hand still shaking, she scrambled for a small shard of mirror she kept in a pack. Holding it up, she was terrified that her eyes might be flashing red.  
But no, they were the same blue they had always been. Not even a hint of that horrible fucking red glow.  
She started to feel like her namesake, a jackass. How the hell could she have caught a Logic Virus up here? She wasn't messing with any machine tech, they hadn't hit her with anything.  
Just Dumbass up here with her, and she hadn't even kicked him, let alone made contact with his long-dead circuits.  
Glancing back down with unaided eyes, she saw that the robots had spread out some, but that they were still excited. Better get out her parabolic microphone. Then she might at least hear something that'd make this whole waste of time worthwhile.  
If they'd just been doing something terrible, like making a weapon or . . . sacrificing cats, she could justify blowing them up. Her vow to take heads seemed empty, though, when she was here alone, looking at them acting like excited children.  
There was just something so . . . unhealthily pure about their excitement. She could remember seeing her own friends and allies like that around her, when she brought in some crate of long-desired goods that had been lost in a warehouse.  
Jackass, they'd say, we waited six months for this.  
Well, at least you got it now, she'd tell them. And as annoyed as they were, they were still happy, hopping up and down. The stupid knick-nacks that they all collected, that made them unique, bouncing with each jump.  
Just like the machines and their stupid masks.  
"Fuck it all," she said. She didn't look down as she pointed the microphone down towards the camp. It was way more noticeable than her binoculars, so she had hesitated to use it. But she had to recoup her time spent, somehow.  
The sound crackled to life in her earpiece. She picked up a smattering of robot voices, a cacophany that overrode each other, until she adjusted the device to pick up just two in conversation.  
". . . dID Not eVEn gET it yoURSeLf. WhAT Is tHE vALUe?"  
"IT iS pRETtY. i CAN vICaRioUSly BeLIeve ThaT I AcHIEvEd It mYsELf."  
"ThaT IS fooLIsH. YOu dID Not ATtaIn tHe kILl. It iS lIKE a LiE."  
"So? PErhaPS i WILl liE, THEn. I wiLL teLL oTHeRs THat I kiLLeD the ANdrOId."  
Jackass felt her chest tighten, and threw down the microphone. Grabbing her rifle, she looked back down there, scanning for the two robots.  
There. Two apart from the others.  
One of them was holding . . . Oh fucking hell.  
She didn't recognize the face, the skin was long-gone. But there was no mistaking the underlying structure of an android head. It was on a rope, which the robot had slung around its neck.  
She was shaking again, seeing red at the corners of her vision.  
Maybe it was a logic virus. Or maybe she just hated them too fucking much. She didn't know.  
She scanned the camp now, and saw that the new-comer robot had laid out its wares. The ones that the others had been so excited about.  
They were parts, but they were not machine parts. They were parts of androids.  
She could recognize strips of cloth in YoRHa colors. Others were the more utilitarian garb of the Resistance. Many were stained in blood.  
And the robots were adding those bits of cloth, wrapping them around limbs, giving what seemed to be a lot of their currency over for these . . .  
These trophies. Most precious of all, clearly, were the heads, that some seemed to be collecting.  
She was shaking too much to want to risk shooting, no matter how much she wished she could see the faces of the newcomers shatter.  
She needed . . . she needed some help here. Not from the other members of the Resistance, in killing them, she needed escape from her own mind.  
So often she felt such a joy, a rush, in combat. She'd seen that in every android, from the old members of the Resistance, to the newest YoRHa models.  
But right now, she felt nothing. Any joy was lost in a swirl of hate and pain.  
She needed that rush right now, more than anything.  
Reaching into her bag, she took out an injector. E-drug, of her own making. Biting the top off, she spat it aside and jammed the needle into her neck.  
At once, she felt the adrenaline-like surge. The yellow tones of the desert turned to red, and she slumped back, staring at the top of her shelter. It was prettier in red, she thought. And so much simpler. A lot fewer colors to parse, just . . . shades of red.  
She felt butterflies in her stomach, a giddy feeling. Then she hit the detonator.  
The explosion was massive, far overkill for even that many machines. The earth underneath her shook, rippled, and she knew that at this distance it could damage her ears. Subtlety was not her strong suit when it came time to kill, and usually she dug a nice fireball. This time, she wasn't even looking. She had to do it, but she didn't want to focus on it. Just think about the sky.  
Her view of it was invaded by the flaming wreckage of machines coming back down to earth, leaving paler or darker red streaks in her vision.  
The e-drug high disappeared far too soon, also bringing her back to earth, and she wished she could take another. It wasn't just feeling good, it was the contrast that was so sharp, between this hate and pain that was eating her alive, and that feeling of happiness, of love, that she'd felt far too little of in all her years.  
It was a fake feeling, though. The people she loved, they were gone. Nearly all of them.  
And besides that, the part of her that hated herself figured she probably deserved to suffer. Her hands were hardly clean, and in the end she was just a pathetic android, a pointless tool. Fundamentally no different from the machines, even if her core wasn't like the YoRHa ones, literally made from machines. In the end, that didn't matter.  
Looking back down at the valley, she just saw a blackened crater. None were left in any shape that could be a threat to anyone. A couple robots still had their eyes lit, maybe alive in some way.  
Alive, yeah right. They weren't alive. Just stupid machines, as worthless as her.  
It was so much easier when you told yourself that.  
Looking at Dumbass, next to her, she had a desire to shoot him, even though he - no, not he, it - had deactivated long ago.  
Holding the rifle up to the round head of the machine, she put her finger on the trigger.  
The damn thing just sat there, the metal as pale as the bones of animals in the fierce sun. Probably like human bones, too.  
Her finger twitched, and she wanted to pull the trigger so badly. More than at Dumbass, she wanted to point it at herself.  
Instead, she threw the rifle down, laid back in the sand, and cried.

*******

FINIS


End file.
